one hundred and fourteen

The first, and so far only, time was when I was seventeen.

I stood in the hallway outside my classics classroom, feeling sick and alone, trying to remember when exactly my period was meant to have started. Had it been just over four weeks since the last, or five? I never thought much about it. My nausea was only nerves - had to only be nerves.

Until then, I had not realised what a joy it was to bleed.

I have never wanted children - even less when still a child. Never been able to imagine myself a mother, nuturing a little being that was part-me and not-me at all.

But I saw pictures of him when young, and he told me things he had made and done. And I wondered what our children would look like, what my son's hand would feel like in mine.

'and i would have liked to,
to have something above you
to have something to hold
and know i could choose to let it grow'

(Emmy the Great, We almost had a baby)